About Andrew L. Jagoda

Andrew Jagoda advises clients that finance, buy, sell, build, lease and manage real estate properties in all asset classes. He also has extensive experience representing both lenders and borrowers in workouts and restructurings. Having assisted both the US government and the government of the People's Republic of China in disposing of billions in real estate assets, he is prepared to handle the most challenging transactions.

Counsel for all real estate assets and all business cycles

Andrew is the quintessential real estate lawyer for all asset classes — including distressed assets — and all business cycles. He advises clients on transactions involving large office buildings, affordable housing and other multifamily properties, hotels, industrial facilities and retail centers, both on an individual property and on a portfolio basis. He has represented lenders in a variety of loan transactions, including construction loans, multiproperty financings, mezzanine loans and ground lease mortgage loans (involving both fee and leasehold positions). Andrew also represents property owners in the acquisition, sale and development of property, including the negotiation of construction contracts and construction financing, permanent financing and joint ventures with equity investors. Andrew's practice also includes the representation of both landlords and tenants in ground leases and in office and retail leases. His clients include insurance companies, banks, affordable housing developers and other developers, foreign and US investment funds, family-office investors, landlords, tenants and nonprofit organizations.

Andrew takes a holistic approach with his clients, with a focus on a client's position in the market and not only with respect to individual transactions. He routinely works with clients to develop and upgrade their operating platforms and document forms, and he assists clients in anticipating and addressing market trends and issues.

During his 40-year career, Andrew has gained considerable knowledge and experience over numerous cycles advising clients with distressed real estate assets, which includes representing lenders with the workout, restructuring and foreclosure of real estate and construction mortgage loans. He has also helped his clients foreclose mortgages, take back mortgage properties in deed-in-lieu transactions, bought and sold impaired real estate loans, and bought and sold REO. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he served as co-chair of a group of Katten real estate attorneys who assisted a major financial institution to modify over 200 commercial mortgage loans, involving hotels, multi-family residences, office building and retail centers located throughout the United States, in order to provide borrowers with short-term relief.

Andrew's broad career has included public service representing US taxpayers in the real estate crisis in the early 1990s. In this role, he served as counsel at the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), a federal agency charged with the disposition of real estate assets from failed financial institutions. At the RTC, he advised on the disposition of approximately $4 billion of assets. Andrew also represented China Huarong Asset Management Corporation, an agency of the government of the People's Republic of China, in a series of bulk sales of more than $1 billion of nonperforming loans and foreclosed properties, structured as joint ventures between Huarong and investors. These were among the first such transactions conducted in China. Andrew has also represented the heirs of victims of the Holocaust in the recovery of art stolen by the Nazis.

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Practice Focus

  • Real estate finance
  • Real estate acquisition and development
  • Affordable housing and community development

Representative Experience

  • Representation of financial institution in $1 billion refinancing of Manhattan office building.
  • Representation of affordable housing developer in construction of multi-tower project in Queens, New York consisting of 680 units and cost of $400,000,000.
  • Representation of affordable housing developer in acquisition, financing and redevelopment of 1,700 affordable housing units in 15 buildings in Brooklyn as part of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Permanent Affordability Commitment Together Program (PACT Program), with aggregate equity and debt of $750,000,000.
  • Representation of developer of the financing and construction of a 300 unit project in Long Island at a cost of $150,000,000.
  • Representation of financial institution in $ $90,000,000 financing of a 320 unit apartment building in Jersey City, New Jersey.
  • Representation of financial institution in $230,000,000 financing of a portfolio of commercial properties in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
  • Representation of financial institution in a $300,000,000 financing of portfolio of student housing projects.
  • Representation of financial institution in a $52,000,000 construction financing of a 420 unit apartment project in Miami, Florida.
  • Representation of financial institution in a $400,000,000 construction loan of a 60 luxury condominium unit project in Manhattan.

News

Publications

Presentations and Events

Practices
Industries
Education
  • Harvard Law School, JD, cum laude
  • Brandeis University, BA, Economics, magna cum laude
Bar Admissions
  • New York
Court Admissions
  • US District Court, Southern District of New York
  • US Supreme Court
Community Involvements
  • American Bar Association
  • New York State Bar Association
  • Real Estate Board of New York
  • American College of Mortgage Attorneys, Fellow
Languages
  • French
Recognitions
Recognized or listed in the following:
  • Best Lawyers in America
    Real Estate Law, 2018–2025
  • Super Lawyers
    New York, 2015–2024
  • The Legal 500 United States
    Recommended Attorney, 2017–2019, 2021
Award Methodologies